Noted satirist Richard Armour (1906–1989) said of Wild Bill Hickok that he never killed anyone except in self-defense. The problem was, if I recall the humor correctly, that Wild Bill was constantly defending himself.

This might apply in some degree to the Department of Defense.

In 1949, Congress placed the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force under the newly renamed Department of Defense.  The name change from the Department of War to a kinder, gentler moniker was at first only cosmetic.  The killing, of course, continued.

What was not merely cosmetic was the introduction of left-of-center social policy.  The Old Guard was being replaced by a new generation.  Some of the new policies were changes for the better — for example, the end of racial apartheid in the military services and the end (mostly) of sexual harassment of women who were serving valiantly in the armed forces.  Unfortunately, once begun, the bureaucratic policies developed a life of their own and expanded beyond reason.

My military career spanned the years from 1968 to ’90, during which time I saw the gradual but forceful tidal wave of social change in the armed forces, years in which the best of ideas became warped into harmful absurdities.  By now the shameful story is well known to conservatives.  In congressional hearings on such matters, General Milley, himself no Trump admirer, seemed to express surprise at testimony that so-called drag queens had been invited into Department of Defense children’s schools for “story hour.”

Thank God that President Trump has begun the process of the military’s return to its previous focus on war, a policy that, satirically and brutally, states that the mission of the armed forces is to “break things and kill people.”

Although the real mission is to avoid war when possible, polite society rightfully recoils at the means of conducting war.  Killing fellow humans is so repugnant, even in combat, that soldiers have to be trained on targets made to look like people in order to prevent them from freezing up when the real enemy is trying to kill them.

Throughout America’s wars, our war fighters have been merciful, not only to civilians caught in the crossfire, but even to captured enemy soldiers.  Violations were not treated lightly.

There are too many anecdotes to recount here, but the Department of Defense has for a long time been turning its emphasis away from winning wars to the infamous and often sordid goals of diversity, inclusion, and equity.  Those are amorphous words of variable meaning that include normalizing acts of sexual perversion, even those involving small children.

The most obvious effects were that Navy ships in the open sea, captained by officers well versed in the acceptance of transsexuality, collided due to poor seamanship.  Command and seamanship are complex skills requiring many hours of intense training and practice — hours that must be reduced to make way for the pride rainbows and pixie dust of radical ideologies.

This is not to say that the entire military had become incapable of tactical maneuvers, but rather that the warning signs were loud and clear that our ability to prevail over an aggressive enemy army was in jeopardy.

President Trump’s decision to begin restoring the name of the War Department is more than cosmetic.  It involves restoring a mindset.  When a soldier puts on the uniform each day, he is mindful that he is not a civilian.  Once his pay statement each month begins to say “Department of War,” he will be reminded that he is a warrior, and that his real job, should it ever come to that, is to break things and kill people.

Image via Pixabay.